How does officiating improve?

[Paladin]

Getting rid of Mike Riley for a start

Replace Riley with someone who is universally respected. Someone like Collina, or even Nigel Owens. Give them carte blanche to totally reform the whole refereeing system, from the PL right down to grass roots.

 

[Bournemouth Blue]

Clearly Ederson was fouled after Cancelo cleared the danger, should have been a yellow

 

[Blue Mist]

1. Stop Pigmol being a closed shop. Promote good refs demote shit ones.
2. Increase the fitness test and sack any that don't pass
3. Mike them up.
4 Make all clubs have screens, why are those 2 allowed to be different ?

FUCK OFF the match commander, who is hev what is his role ?

Then remember that Sky/Bt want controversy so they will forensically examine certain decisions but ignore others. It isn't always the refs that are the problem. The Kane challenge is more about who it was on rather than whether it was a red.

 

[pudge]

I've said it before and whilst I may chat shite about most things, I stand by this...

Edit: Don't know why it's showing as multiple posts, it's always been just one.

Said it nigh on two years ago and I'll say it again, you can never just say "it's corrupt and irreparable" or that they need more help etc as a means to wash over the basic standard of referees.

You've got the countless admissions from officials since retired that they felt pressure, for example at Old Trafford. Those officials do and did the exact opposite of what an official is there to do, they're dictating games instead of facilitating them. That leads to one of the main factors of the poor standard of officiating in my opinion in that there is now a pseudo-celebrity culture around match officials these days.

You've got Howard Webb, Dermot Gallagher, Chris Foy, Graham Poll, Clattenburg etc all doing television appearances now, all doing newspaper columns, punditry. Even Mike Dean had a cameo in a TV Show this past year ffs! Officials in the game now are looking at that and saying "I've to make a name for myself" so that that can be them in 5/10/15 years. The best referees are those you don't notice, those you don't know the name of after all. This pseudo-celebrity image breeds officials who want to make the headlines, put themselves in the spotlight; Mike Dean for crying out load again. Bobby Madley too was fast becoming the worst and he fucked off suspiciously enough.

It also directly breeds this "holier than thou" attitude they all undeniably have. They very rarely engage or acknowledge players, managers etc. I of course don't mean in instances when players/managers scream for cards etc but instances that call for clarification and reasoning, like yesterday and the penalty calls, red cards. Call the captain and those involved over and explain the process. Officials are not accountable to the players when in fact they should be, as again they are there to facilitate. I mean, how the hell does Martin Tyler know the process of VAR and when it's engaged or finished but the fans can't?

The communication and relatability with players is another factor and again I don't mean specifically in-game when players are screaming and ranting. Officials, with all due respect, have not played football at the highest level yet are tasked at refereeing it. Take diving for instance;

Undoubtedly players do it, that can't be denied, and it makes a tough job trickier for officials admittedly. However, when you see the likes of Sané, Walker, Salah etc and the speeds they reach it doesn't take much to knock them over. Do you think Jon Moss has ran fast enough to understand that? They've never been in that situation. Better communication and understanding with the players will lead to better decisions, undeniably. Create a better, more incentive ladened pathway for retired players to get into officiating and create that common knowledge.

Accountability is the big factor for me though yet shockingly it's non-existent. VAR does not improve an officials decision making, it just possibly corrects a bad decision or makes it for them. Therefore it doesn't tackle the root issue, it's merely a bandage over a great, big, massive cut that is a shockingly low standard of officiating. There's a reason there were no English officials at the World Cup. The FA/everyone has access to untold amount of angles post-match and the days that follow any match so any official who constantly makes bad decisions could very easily be found out and punished appropriately; but they aren't. They aren't held accountable by the system that's in place now, so VAR won't and doesn't change that. You can't say 'boo' to an official without being punished, however, they can be as inept as humanly possible without suffering the consequences.

If an officials wage/match fee was at stake, their place as an official on the next round of fixtures (a suspension) then you can guarantee it would produce not only better focus but more sincerity for their job which, again, is to facilitate a game of football and not dictate it. That's the biggest cause of the aforementioned points and their attitudes, the fact they know they're untouchable. If they were held accountable for their bad decisions, which there is zero reason as to why they shouldn't be, then of course that will better them as officials.

Why aren't match reports open to the public sure? If there is nothing untoward in an officials report then why can't they be made available to the public after the latest round of fixtures? Even as a fan, the ability see a referee's decision making process and reasoning would greatly improve the view of and current disconnect with the game/officials and fans. It would create a discourse between the fans and the officials and one that would only benefit and improve the situation as it is.

It is not a case of "officiating is awful and it won't change", there's an obscene amount of factors that can and could have been be addressed, tackled and changed before yet another safety net in the form of VAR was given to them. It's the lazy shortcut to sidestepping the underlying issue, it doesn't even address the issue directly. If you can't drive but get given a car that drives itself, you're going to get from A to B more often than not but you're still going to be a shit driver...

They haven't exhausted all other options as the actual important overriding factor and the reason people wanted VAR in the first place was to improve the standard of refereeing that in it's current state brought about too many bad decisions. Otherwise why have officials at all? Why not just have the VAR "ref" buzz down to the stadium announcer to stop the game every time they want from their van 200 miles away?

The standard has to improve as well because not every team will have the use of VAR, it goes well beyond the Premier League sure. Just because City vs United will have it doesn't excuse that Southend vs Wycombe won't. So why is that fair? So the standard of refereeing need's tackled and addressed at all levels because not every level will have VAR.

If there was a linear progression as to how the game and decision making can be improved then VAR was not the next step. The problems go further and beyond extra replays, and all the angles in the world won't fix them but there damn sure are options and actions that can be taken to address them beforehand.

If you picture a boat with a hole in it, filling with water and sinking. VAR has been the equivalent of scooping buckets of water out of the boat whereas the actual solution is to plug the fecking hole.

 

[moomba]

Sack Mike Riley.

Make public the communications between ref and Stockley Park. Cricket does this really well.

Make refs accountable, if they don't do a good job let them find another job. If that means we turn over the lot of them so be it.

Did I mention sack Mike Riley?

 

[VOOMER]

Mods please merge if appropriate but I think this is a discrete thread but probably could have gone in the referee thread, the MOTD threads, the VAR thread, or the corruption thread!

With Shearer publicly going after PIGMOL on the tele last night and with us being in the third season of VAR (with lots and lots of problems with that) what, if anything, can change it and will it change?

ideas from me:
1/ Look back at the common issues over the last 3 yrs and write some case studies on application to supplement the LOTG
2/ Immediately mic up officials and Stockley Park and give the feed to clubs and TV
3/ put a 60 second clock on all VAR interventions. That’s all stockley park get to review things
4/ if the VAR official thinks the ref could call it differently if they had the advantage of replays the only way the decision gets changed is if the ref does it themselves after reviewing the screen
5/ insist refs to do post match interviews
6/ have a timekeeper and take that away from the ref
7/ if the VAR lines overlap on an offside decision it is onside

 

[domalino]

Unfortunately the issue with refereeing is cultural, and it's not going to improve.

The sport and fans treat referees with contempt, with conspiracy theories abounding and abuse completely normalised. "The referee's a wanker" is possibly the best known chant in football. People laugh and congratulate managers or players who openly abuse referees or accuse them of corruption.

That contempt reaches the grassroots where there are fewer young referees than ever before because they keep getting abused and assaulted and quitting. Any teenager with anything better to do goes and does it after being spat at or punched by some 35 year old hungover twat.

Fewer grassroots referees mean you a shallower talent pool, which means fewer professional referees of the correct standard.

That's where all of the Premier League's problems begin. Mike Riley does everything from the perspective of protecting the referees that work for him, because they are an endangered speices. 2 top PL referees have recently quit because the abuse wasn't worth it. We have parachuted in an Australian to boost numbers.

Why don't retroactive decisions happen? Because they don't want to publicly undermine referees by overruling them. Why do we have "clear and obvious error" bullshit? To protect the referees on pitch from being overruled. Why don't we hear VAR/Referee conversations? To protect the referees. Why don't referees get demoted? Because there's no good options to promote.

There are some issues around the laws being written in a oblique way that makes refereeing harder, but mostly the issue is that no one in their right mind would ever want to be a referee.

The sport and fans need to change the culture around referees and then we might attract better ones. Bring back some respect for a profession that the sport can't function without and is a disaster when standards slip.

I'd start by giving us the feed on their mic as per Rugby, and heavily fining every player who is abusive towards them for the first season. 1 match ban the second time.

Do it retroactively to take it out of the referees hands because they won't suddenly adopt zero tolerance on being called a cheating **** by 5 players after a lifetime of putting up with it.

If it offends viewers on TV then blame the players.

 

[Tuearts right boot]

Who VARs the VAR

 

[Whichonespink]

Who VARs the VAR

Its VARs all the way down

 

[decmancity]

Stop corruption.

Sadly, that is impossible so nothing will change.